KWSAN REVIEWS
FILMS: 'Sheriff'
By BOB BUTLER
Kanan Arts and Reviews Editor
I missed a lot of the lines in "Support Your Local Sheriff" because the people around me didn't want to stop laughing. On one hand this gipped me—Bill Bowers, the writer-producer of the film, is visiting KU this week and I wanted to soak everything up so I could ask him some intelligent questions. On the other hand—I was having such a good time I didn't care.
Don't let the "Don Knots advertising" (Bowers' own words) put you off. "Sheriff" is a very funny, very professional film. The cast is full of those faces you've seen in every Western—you know, you recognize the actors but you never know their names.
Bowers' script has some of the funniest lines I've heard since "The Odd Couple." And with the timing provided by the cast and director Burt Kennedy just about every one of them comes across.
We find James Garner as the new sheriff in a booming gold town, trying to keep the peace but hampered by a kill-crazy old rancher (Walter Brennan) and his thick-headed sons. By the time the town has been cleaned up he has won the heart of the mayor's daughter (Joan Hackett) and turned the town bum (Jack Elam) into "one of the most beloved characters in Western folklore."
Garner is great, turning in the kind of performance which made the old "Maverick" series such a success. Brennan—well, Walter Brennan never changes. Here he is a cross between a smart Grandpa McCoy and a stupid Grandpa Sonnett. Miss Hackett is the cast's weak point. She's not quite sure how to play comedy and she blows a few really funny lines.
But Jack Elam steals the show. Elam has always been a heavy, except for a regular part in an ill-fated series called "The Dakotas." You'll know him on sight: unshaved and skinny with one cocked
eye. His performance rivals Lee Marvin's in "Cat Ballou" and he deserves an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. His is impeccable.
Bowers denies that this is meant to be a take-off on Westerns or an attack on the Western myth (he admits to having created that myth). It doesn't matter, because trying to classify a picture like "Sheriff" is a waste of time. It's there to be enjoyed, not dissected.
Although this is not really the appropriate place for this, I would like to thank Mr. Bowers and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for an enlightening and very entertaining week. Let's hope Hollywood keeps sending us visitors and films of the same quality.
Apr. 17 1969 KANSAN 5
THE BOOKS OF AMERICAN NEGRO SPIRITUALS, collected by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson (Viking Compass, $3.95)—A beautiful paperback volume that has not only words and music but an excellent commentary. The editors include 120 songs, faithful to the original language, the music arranged simply—the great standards of Negro musical lore.
BOOKS:
PRAYERS FROM THE ARK, by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, translated by Rumer Godden (Viking Compass, $1.25)—A delightful book of poetry, written by a French poet and published in a small edition, then later translated by Rumer Godden. Each poem is a simple prayer by one of the animals in Noah's Ark. lovely little volume.
TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, by John Steinbeck (Viking Compass, $1.65) A volume that becomes one worth cherishing more each year, even though its initial reception by some critics was cool. In his camper, accompanied by his dog Charley, the late John Steinbeck toured much of the United States several years ago. He told of his travels, the people he met, the land, his country in a time of some ferment, especially racial.
WATCHERS OF THE SKIES,
by Willy Ley (Viking Compass,
$2.95)-Subtitled "an informal
history of astronomy from
Babylon to the space age." In
this huge book, Ley has captured the mystery and the
magic of the skies.
Drug users like cultural pursuits
WASHINGTON (UPI) A New York psychiatrist has said high school students who use marijuana are more interested in cultural pursuits and less interested in sports and television than nonusers.
Dr. Alfred M. Freedman, chairman of the department of psychiatry at the New York Medical College metropolitan hospital center, told a Senate hearing on narcotics addiction and control that an estimated 20 million Americans now use or have experimented at some time with marijuana.
He said youths were the greatest users of marijuana—older persons seem to prefer barbiturates—and the incidence of use among junior high school and even grammar school pupils is increasing.
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